


Cantom messed up family tree

by Rae00503



Series: Backstories for my characters [1]
Category: Original Story
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Original work - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:46:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22233511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae00503/pseuds/Rae00503
Summary: Stories of the Cantom family.
Relationships: Original Character/Original Character
Series: Backstories for my characters [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600378





	Cantom messed up family tree

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a little bit about how Rylee talks about babies dying and it’s kinda casual, but that’s just cause he’s unaffected by thoughts of them at this point.

Rylee POV

Hi. As you can probably tell, I’m Rylee. Weird spelling, right? My mom was weird like that. My dad would have stopped her from making it spelled so weird, like he did for my brother, Charlie, but he wasn’t there when this little bundle of joy popped into the world. He kinda just disappeared. I don’t know what really happened to him. Let’s start where Charlie died.

I was 10 years old when it happened. He went to school everyday, and he came back unharmed everyday and helped me with homework. It was a nice, normal routine, until he didn’t come back unharmed. He didn’t come back at all. Mama was so scared about what could have happened to her baby. She thought something bad would happen to him. (Spoiler alert: She was right but that’s for later)

We didn’t find any traces of Charlie after looking for 7 months. The case had ran cold. People lost hope. Mama never did though. Mama hoped everyday that when I walked through the door, I would, somehow, either be Charlie or have him with me. I never did.

Mama hated that she had lost both her husband and son. She started to blame herself. She said it was because she wasn’t a good enough wife or mother, that God was punishing her for not being good enough by taking away the people she loved. I told her it wasn’t her fault, and with how little I understood, none of it was her fault. 

She said I was right. That it wasn’t her fault. It was mine. Daddy left when she was pregnant with ME. Charlie went missing when he was coming home to help ME with homework. It was all MY fault. She drilled that into my head. She made sure I knew it, made sure I believed it. She used to say, “maybe if I hit you hard enough, I’ll be able to beat the worthlessness out of you.” And believe me, she really tried to beat it out of me.

This went on until I was 14 years old. It was Charlie’s birthday. Mama always hit me the hardest on this day. Said it reminded her too much of how terrible of a child I am. The next day I showed up to school with a black eye, a few cuts on my face, a busted lip, and a wrapped up left hand that still had some glass shards in it. I would have told anyone that asked that I had gotten into a fight outside of school, but a nosy friend of mine who knew my situation decided I had been through enough and told the first teacher that asked the truth.

The teacher took us to the counselor’s office after that and that’s where we stayed until the only people on my emergency contact form showed up, Charlie’s friends, Rosemary and Ace. 

They have been looking out for me since he died. Probably because they feel sorry for me losing my brother or because I’m friends with Rosemary’s little sister. Either way they became like the family I never had and have been the ones to fill out my first day paperwork, because my mom would never be able to bring herself to care enough to do anything more than sign when needed.

Anyways, they told me my mom was taken into custody for obvious reasons. They said they had been chosen to be my temporary guardians until the case is finished. Once it is, if they found my mom guilty, which they did, they would be looking after me until I am 18, as I may not be adopted in the three and a half years.

After they explained everything to me, they were going to take me home, but when they saw my hand they decided to make a quick stop at the store to get stuff to restock the first aid kit they had at home. It was quite a boring side quest so I’ll just skip to when we got to my new home.

Ace took me into the kitchen area to the left and behind one of their three tables. As he worked on taking out the remaining bits of glass in my hand, Rosemary explained that we would be going to my old apartment to get all my belongings. I asked why we couldn’t go today, but she said she and Ace had to go to their boring college classes soon. She assured me neither of them had class tomorrow though and we could go then.

True to her word, Rosemary and Ace has no classes today and we went to retrieve my measly belongings. I ended up leaving with only a small backpack of clothes, my rat (Ratthew), and a suitcase full of Charlie and the babies’ old stuff.

Oh golly gee. I forgot to tell you about my baby sisters. Well, there isn’t much to tell other than their deaths were perfect examples of Mama’s lack of sanity. Mar met her fate as she met the sidewalk Mama pushed her out onto. Emmy cried and cried until Mama got her to stop my holding a pillow to her face. Jaimey was so hungry, the poor thing, she weighed less than half of what she weighed when she was born.

I kept a small toy that belonged to each of them, so that they would not be forgotten. Of Charlie’s things, all I had was his art journal and his phone that he had left at home that day. I keep it so that if, and that’s a big if, we ever find him, he won’t have to buy another. 

Ace says that is very sweet to keep his phone, but Rosemary says that it is so old it probably doesn’t work anymore. To prove her wrong, I turned on the phone. To prove her right, the old fossil immediately shut back off. She gave me a skeptical look after that and told me that it would just be a better idea to buy him a new one if he suddenly shows up on our doorstep one day. Ace added in a, “and that’s a big if!”

Once we got back to their apartment, they led me down the hall to the right. There were two doors on either side and one at the end.  
“That’s,” Rosemary said, indicating the first door to the left, “Ace’s room. Across is mine. Next to mine is the bathroom and the other one is just a big closet.”

“What about the other room?” I asked

“I was just getting to that.” She responded with a quick ‘boop’ to my nose. “This room right in front of you was our recording room, but now we’ll be taking out all the mics and stuff and turning it into your room.” She opened the door and I couldn’t believe what I saw.

It was massive. Probably as big as, if not bigger than, my old apartment in it’s entirety. They had already started packing up some of the stuff, probably last night while I slept on one of their many couches, but they still had quite a bit of work left to do. 

For the rest of that day we all worked on taking stuff out and putting it into boxes that will either go to the closet in the hall or their storage unit. Ace said they had some furniture down there and that I could use some of it if I wanted. Believe me, when we got down there, I wanted. There was actually a lot of nice stuff, from a loft bed to a couch (pay attention to this couch, as it will be used later for a very special someone) to an expensive looking desk. We ended up deciding to take quite a bit of the furniture that was down there back to the apartment. It was getting late by then so we decided to actually take it the next day.

The next day came and I couldn’t wait to fill that empty room. The room had a built in closet with sliding doors on the wall to the right of the door. We put the bed with the right side on the wall across from the door with the ladder on the left side. The couch was put under the bed, but it was a lot smaller compared to the bed so we put a side table behind the ladder to fill the empty space. I put the desk to the left of the door and had a couple bookshelves along the wall next to it.

We had brought a couple plush chairs and put the in the center of each side, to try and fill empty space. The middle of the room was looking bare so we added a VERY fluffy, light blue rug. And then we were done. I was very proud of how it turned out.

I went back to school two days after, on Wednesday. I got a few more looks than I would have liked. Actually, a LOT more looks than I would have liked. The only people that were acting like nothing had happened was Jill, Rosemary’s sister, and Maddox, but they always act like nothing was happening. Aeya and Kai were acting like their normal selves, just with a little more sugar and a lot more questions. Wes acted like he wanted to ask some stuff, but he never asked anything, probably saw it as more polite that way. 

The questions from Aeya and Kai ranged from, “Is your mom getting the chair?” to “where’s your new place? Is it big enough for parties? Will the new ‘rents let you have parties?” My answers ranged from, “No, it’s lethal injection.” to “I’m at Jill’s sister’s place now. We probably could have a party if we bribed them.” 

After a week everything was pretty much back to normal at school. At Ace and Rosemary’s apartment, I was still settling in and getting used to the schedule they had. Every morning at 4:30 they would wake me up to tell me they were going for a jog. I would sleep till 5:30 when they got back. They would take their showers while I got dressed and got my supplies together. After, I would take care of hygiene matters then watch tv till breakfast. Breakfast was normally around 6:15. I had until 6:45 to eat, then Rosemary would drive me to school and I’d be there by 7:15. 

After school I’d ride the bus and be back at 4:45. Ace would be home already and we would play video games until Rosemary got back at 6 and made me do homework while she cooked. Ace would normally help in the kitchen or continue his game until dinner was ready. We would always eat at the smaller round table that Ace called the betting table, as it was used for when they had Saturday night game night with friends. 

We’d finish dinner around 7:15, at which time I would take a shower and then watch tv until 8:30, when Rosemary would say I need to go to bed. I’d normally be asleep by 9. Then I’d get 8 and a half hours of sleep and wake up to redo the cycle.

It was a nice routine. Then that darn kid showed up. That darn Yeong-ho. He just showed up through the window one day and then he ruined the routine. He would join us for dinner so we would move to the bigger, squarer table. He would play video games with Ace, as he would be home at 4 rather than 4:45. He got on my nerves so much. 

When I tried to talk to Rosemary, all she said was, “that’s how it tends to be when you love someone.” What was she talking about? I didn’t love Yeong-ho. I despised him. I hated him so much that everyday I thought about something new I hated about him. I would ask friends who had cars if they could give me a ride to I could be home before him. I was only there before him once. I didn’t know why, but I had this feeling that it was wrong that he wasn’t there. 

He didn’t come over that entire day. Never for dinner. Never for video games. Never there at all. I thought maybe he was just sick today or maybe his parents grounded him or something. I remembered he mentioned he lived in room 307, we lived in 207 so he was right above us. Ace and I went up there to ask his parents about him and when we got there the only people were a small girl and a grandma aged woman. 

I asked, “does Yeong-ho live here?” The woman said yes, but he had been in an accident earlier that day on his way home from school. She said he would be at the hospital down Caine street if we wanted to visit him. We went down there and the car ride was entirely silent.

Once we got to his room, we saw his parents. Two men about early thirties, one tall and pale with many tattoos and the other darker skinned and kinda on the shorter side if I’m being honest. I had met them once before when Yeong-ho had brought them over to introduce them. They were nice, the darker skinned one having never stopped smiling, but the pale one had a constant look of indifference. When we saw them this time, neither were smiling and neither looked indifferent. They both looked completely devastated. As can be expected when your son is in the other room, badly injured, and you have no way of knowing if he’ll live or die.

Yeong-ho ended up not waking up for two weeks. Over these two weeks I thought about how I felt towards him. I eventually came to the conclusion that I didn’t hate him, I didn’t even dislike him really. But I didn’t think that I could stand to be friends with him. Maybe I wanted to be more? I had never like-liked somebody before, so I didn’t know what it would be like when I did. Once I asked Ace how you knew if you liked someone in that way. His reply was something along the lines of, “You won’t be able to stop thinking about them.” Check. “Your heart will beat faster when your eyes meet.” Check. “You’ll care about them more than yourself.” Check.

Well darn. Maybe I did have a crush on him. How would I tell him? That’s the question I worried about then. I waited until he woke up and everyday I worked to memorize the short speech I wrote for him, expressing my feelings. I practiced and practiced, rewording it for hours until it sounded right. I practiced in front of my mirror or in front of a friend, every time adding something to make it more perfect. 

The day that my phone buzzed was the day we had all been waiting for, he was awake. Yeong-ho had texted me a selfie and added the caption: “I lived bitch.” I replied with a “lol” and asked if he was allowed any visitors. He said not yet but he would like to spend the first day his is allowed visitors with his dads. I was totally cool with that. I understood completely. I would just visit soon after and tell him then. I practiced my speech at least five times until I was confident enough with it.

Yeong-ho was allowed two visitors at a time, as the room was not very big. Ace took me to visit him the day after he was first allowed visitors and I was SO nervous. He walked me to his room and asked if I wanted him to stay out there or go in with me. I asked that he stay out for a few minutes.

This was my chance. As I turned the knob I felt more and more nerves hit me, full force. I opened the door, shakily, and I saw the most beautiful person in my life. The fair prince Yeong-ho. I closed the door behind me as I walked over to him.

“Good morning Sleeping Beauty.” I teased.

“And to you Prince Charming.” He responded.

I was prepared to start my speech then, but I just couldn’t. I was still too scared. Instead I decided to mess with him a little longer hoping to build up the courage to tell him. I never built up that courage. We talked about how he had a strange dream of a giant version of Ratthew that had taken him on a river side date. Then it had started raining gum balls. 

As I was getting up to leave, Yeong-ho grabbed my arm. I turned back to see what it was and he did something unexpected (I bet you all know what it is though). He pulled me in a kissed me. I was stunned. This is what I’ve been wanting to do for the past week and a half and now it was happening. Why wasn’t I kissing back?!

Before I got to kiss back, he pulled away and started off in a ramble that was something along the lines of: “I’ve liked you since we first met and I’m sorry for kissing you so unexpectedly and I hope you like me back.” But with a bit of stutter added in and a lot more words.

He finished his rant with, “If you don’t like me back please don’t be mad at me for ki-“ and then I kissed him. He was shocked for a moment, but only for a moment, then he started kissing back and pulling me closer, deepening it. 

After that quick little make out sesh, Ace came in and said, “That’s a bit much for a hospital room, don’t you think?” I immediately pulled back, startled, and may or may not have fallen straight onto my butt. 

Ace said we had to be getting home, as Rosemary was gonna be back soon. He told Yeong-ho to get well soon and with that we left, but not before I turned back around and made the “call me” sign.

That night, I was so nervous to call him. I had no idea what I was going to talk about, or what I SHOULD talk about, for that matter. I decided to just man up and call him around 10pm. He answered after only two rings.

“Sup, babe?”

“‘Babe’ already? At least take me to dinner first,” I teased.

“That’s a little tricky when you’re confined to a hospital bed.”

“I guess I’ll have to take you out to dinner, then.”

“My, my, what a gentleman.”

We continued to talk like this until around midnight, when Rosemary yelled at us to, and I quote, ‘shut the F up before I come in there and beat yo ass.’ We whispered our good nights and I promptly went to sleep.

Everything was going so good in my life at that moment. I had a nice home, nice pseudo parents, a nice boyfriend, a nice rat. It was the best time of my life. Too bad it only lasted for about a year and a half.

Skip back to when I was ten, the day Charlie disappeared. He was walking home from school, happy as can be, to help his little brother with some schoolwork. It seemed like an ordinary day, but it wasn’t really that ordinary. Charlie stopped at the park to look at the cute little squirrels, then everything went black.

When he woke up he was in a strange place. Maybe a warehouse or abandoned factory? Whatever it was, it STUNK. Like rotten cheese stuffed in a dead animal shoved into dirty gym socks. It was eerily quiet, not even the sound or wind or water dripping into a puddle.

Until he heard footsteps. A man appeared. A very dirty, old, disgusting man. He stepped in front of Charlie and told him something that he’d never be able to forget.

“Welcome home, pet.”

Charlie would be stuck in that life with that sorry excuse of a man for 5 years. After those five years someone finally got to him. They were finally going to take him home. They were gonna take him back to his mama and baby brother. The first place Charlie was taken to, though, was a hospital. He ended up having three cracked ribs and his left wrist was twisted. He was severely underweight and malnourished, and as a result of not speaking for so long, Charlie was unable to say really anything at all.

One of the officers, an Officer Ortega, according to his badge, wanted to speak with him. He was told that the man, not man, worm that took him had fled the moment he heard the police were suspecting him for other charges, such as sexual assault and robbing a store. 

The Officer Ortega said they were going to try, in his words, their damnedest to find that sorry excuse of a person and put him away for as long as they could. He offered his home if anything ever happened, and left his address and cell number for a feels catching Charlie. 

Charlie was told of his mother’s arrest and that his brother was now living with two of his best friends. One of said friends was called and she drove the 45 minute drive in 15. Once she got there, she was so overcome with emotion that she actually cried. 

This startled Charlie, as Rosemary was always the coldest, most cynical person he knew. He guessed she finally learned to break out of her shell. They stayed in the room, as Charlie would be unable to leave for a week or two at least, and Rosemary shared about how much I had grown, both emotionally and physically, since he disappeared.

Ace had picked me up from school that day, saying that he had someone special for me to meet.

To say I was shocked, would be an amazingly large understatement. I thought it was a prank at first. Then when they told me it was really him, I didn’t know what to say. So I just ran forward and hugged him with all my might. He, of course, hugged back and soon I could feel my shoulder getting wet and I was sure he could feel his doing the same. 

That’s when I noticed how much the height difference had shrunk since I was ten. Charlie was actually only about an inch taller, making him the shortest adult I knew, Rosemary and Ace being around 6’ and my teachers mostly being in the 5’7” range. I was only like 5’1” at the time. 

Charlie and I sat around talking and sharing about our lives for the rest of the day. He wasn’t able to communicate much, but I was able to learn he was in a really bad place and I never wanted to go through that at all.

I told him about Yeong-ho, who I suddenly remembered had not shown up today so I called him to check on him. He was fine, just had detention and his parents took him to his little sister’s play.

I asked him if he wanted to meet someone really special to me, and he said, “Yeah. Put them on FaceTime so I can see my competition.”

I FaceTimed him and as it rang, Charlie looked so confused, as no phones could do video chat when he left. I told him there were a lot of technological advancements since he left.

When Yeong-ho picked up, he was so confused by the unfamiliar man sitting beside his boyfriend. He thought they must be related since they looked so similar, with their matching thick blond hair and large purple eyes.

“Yeong-ho, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Yeong-ho.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Charlie? As in your dead brother Charlie?”

“Yeah. Turns out he wasn’t as dead as we thought he was.”

“That’s awesome! What happened to you, man?”

“That’s a pretty touchy subject at the moment and Char actually can’t speak right now.”

“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to hit a soft spot.”

“It’s all good, it’s not that easy to get to him. Right Char?” I turn to Charlie and he gives a thumbs up.

“That’s a relief. Thought you would break up with me if I upset your brother.”

“Might still do it.” I just love teasing him.

“Please don’t, I’ll never be able to go on if you do!” He fake faints, so melodramatic.

“Alright, I’ll keep you around a bit longer.”

“I gotta go now before my papa gets mad. Night, love you.” He blows a kiss.

“Same, bro” 

“Dude.”

“Fine, fine. Love you too.” I return his blown kiss.

Afterwards I decided to catch Charlie up on 5 years worth of Disney films. We got until around the BFG remake, before I fell asleep curled up against him. He must have been playing with my hair, as there were multiple tiny braids in my hair when I woke up the next morning. 

Speaking of waking up, I was very confused once I did. It was Friday so I had expected Rosemary to take me home so I would be able to get ready for school the next day. I was about to ask Charlie about it, but I then remembered he couldn’t talk.

I excused myself and went out to the hall to call Rosemary. She told me that she was going to let me spend the next couple of days spending time with Charlie. I LOVED this idea. Skipping school AND hanging out with my brother, SCORE. 

So, Charlie and I spent the next couple of days hanging out together, and by Monday my friends were very curious as to where I had been. I filled them in on the events of the past half a week and answered their questions. 

That is where this story ends, but there are plenty of other stories just waiting to be told.


End file.
